![]() ![]() You can change the visual layout as well, including flipping your TV (or Switch) into “Tate” mode, changing the text and icon size, and choosing where certain icons are displayed. Thankfully, a number of features let you tailor the difficulty to your ability somewhat, like setting the number of lives and continues you’re allowed to have, although doing so may void your ability to set a high score. This is a punishingly difficult game, even on Easy (learn to love your missile barrage). ![]() Interestingly, if you take too long to destroy them, bosses actually LEAVE and you get a bad grade for that level. I haven’t experienced that old giddy feeling during a boss fight in a long time. ![]() Boss battles are typical Treasure fare: big, complex, often multi-stage, and always stressful (but in a good way). You’re not just avoiding enemy ships and their attacks-Ikaruga gleefully throws you into tricky situations where you’re avoiding environmental obstacles too, and the game seems to enjoy funneling you into tight spaces while also dealing with bullets and polarity. Critically, enemy ships are dealt double-damage by your opposite-color attacks, so Ikaruga becomes an exercise in risk/reward gameplay. If you get hit by the opposite color bullets, though, it’s curtains. If you’re the same color as the bullets, your ship can absorb them and build up energy towards a missile barrage attack. This is key because every enemy ship is either black or white, and their bullets and lasers are color coordinated. Your ship can change colors from black to white. While the core gameplay of Ikaruga is still vertical shooter bullet hell, Treasure implemented a unique “polarity” system that makes things simultaneously more approachable and more stressful. Now it finds itself on the Switch, and Ikaruga brings a lot of expectations to the table. Here in North America, Ikaruga launched in 2003. Ikaruga (the game) got its start in Japanese arcades before being ported to the Dreamcast in Japan, and then later to the GameCube in all regions. It’s not a particularly noteworthy passerine so I remained unsure of why Treasure Games decided to name their seminal vertical shooter-now praised as one of the best in the genre-after said bird. Here’s an interesting factoid to start things off: “Ikaruga” is the Japanese name for the masked grosbeak, a finch that lives on the eastern seaboard of China and the surrounding islands (including Japan). ![]()
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